


Love always, Anonymous

by basilanddill



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: ...but should probably be more, Best Friends, Heartache, M/M, Mutual Cluelessness, Mutual Pining, a little sad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2019-01-20 01:55:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12422631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basilanddill/pseuds/basilanddill
Summary: The letters Arthur and Merlin have written to each other throughout the years. The one trip up is that they never see the light of day.





	1. Fireflies and Words

Dear Arthur,

There’s a firefly burning a hole in my pocket. A pocket filled with lint, sweet wrappers, coins, and words I could never say. Words that were too heavy to pull out when the time was right, and even more so when the time was wrong. Words that managed to somehow stitch themselves to the fabric of my being – content and resigned to live within this dark and dusty confine. There were so many words I wanted to say to you, I don’t know how they managed to fit in my pocket – they must be in concentrated form where only the best letters get to stay. They live like a jigsaw puzzle – coming apart only when I go to stand or we go over a bump in the road. 

But the firefly, you see, that’s the problem. Soon enough the hole will be large enough for the letters to trickle through and unbeknownst to me, I’ll go through my day dropping letters like breadcrumbs from a fairy tale until my pockets will be so light I’ll float off the ground up, up, up and never be found again.

Unless, that is, if you were to walk behind me. Would you notice? Would you notice the lonely letters littering the ground behind me? Or would you rather notice the dullness of my hair, the way the grey doesn’t seem to catch the light? Or the rounded tilt to my shoulders? Or the way my knee seems to lock every few steps and I start limping until I feel the muscles loosen and the pain disappears?

Would you bend down and pick up the letters, even when I know that your hips ache and your knees hurt as mine do? Would you do that for me even if you weren’t sure if the letters would mean anything at all? Would you do that simply because they’ve been warmed by my body, their edges sanded from the decades of rubbing against each other?

Would you recognize these eroded letters to be the one true secret I ever held from you?

As always,  
Merlin


	2. Space

Dear Merlin,

For one night I lived in space.

Everywhere there was darkness – pure, satin darkness. I rested on a piece of rock, jagged and unrelenting beneath my back. I watched the universe pass above me as I floated down the current – a feather caught in an updraft. I watched my faults grow smaller and smaller as I drifted away, until I could no longer see them. I watched missed possibilities suffocate and slowly crumble into dust. I watched dreams grow, layer by layer, shining brighter and brighter. These dreams formed a star which burned so bright I had to shut my eyes, but I could still see it burned into my retinas. They burned brightly until one moment where they shook and exploded – fragments scattering and seeking a new home.

And then, there was you.

You took my hand and nudged me past my shattered dreams. You brought me to Saturn and sat with me on the carousel until my lungs didn’t feel so heavy and the colours spun before me – my sadness drawn out of me by the centrifugal force. You took me dancing on the sun – me in my scuffed shoes and you with your sleeves rolled up to your elbows. We danced until my loneliness burned away.

For one night I lived in the space between you and me.

Yours,  
Arthur


	3. Maudlin

Dear Arthur,

I forget how maudlin you get when it’s late at night, at the end of a long work week, and you’re on the south side of tipsy.

It was a Friday night and I had large plans, which included a bowl of roasted chickpeas, my flannel pyjamas, a box of Kleenex, and a dvd of The Book Thief. Of course, I knew my best laid plans were going to disintegrate when I turned the corner in my hall and saw you sitting against my door – your knees bent, your elbows resting on top of them. Your collar was loosened from all your absentminded ministrations, that in itself should have clued me in to your state. Forgive me, this happens now and again. The strangest things will scramble my thoughts for a fraction of a second – things like the delicate line of your neck as you sit there with your eyes closed and your head tilted back against the door.

Sometimes, when it’s reaching the early hours of the next day and the world is slowing down around us, there’s a fragility woven through the air. In the cloak of midnight, with you sitting across from me in my cheap, creaky kitchen chair – our chairs so close that when you fidget you always knock against me – I find myself counting backwards in threes in my mind just so I can remember. 

Because sometimes I forget.

Sometimes I forget the reason you were sitting by my door in the first place – because of the fight you had with Milo. How he yelled, you yelled, and then you stormed out, only to wander back to my place some hours later. I wish I could forget how it makes my heart ache when you show up like this – quiet and hopeful. You turn your head toward me and you look at me as if I can fix the world. I can barely fix my taxes. 

I’d steal the moon for you if I could. Would Milo do that? I’d like to ask but I never do. Maybe I just don’t want to know the answer.

So when you’ve stumbled your way across my flat and you’ve stretched out across my lumpy couch, you’ll have to pardon me if I turn away for longer than it would necessarily take to grab a blanket. I’m just trying to re-route any maudlin thoughts of my own which are trying to conquer my brain. I can feel them sliding up my torso, one thought riding along every rib. They converge and give me heartburn. 

When I drape the blanket over you, I wonder what you’re able to read off my face in the dark because you reach out your hand and cover my own on top of the blanket – on top of your chest. The night freezes in this position, with me bent over you and your eyes focused more than they’ve been all night and searching for something in my own. 

And then I forget.

With the whiskey erasing the titanium fortress you’ve built around yourself, you look softened around the edges – a charcoal sketch that’s been smudged by gentle fingers. Your corners seem less sharp, like I’m less likely to cut myself on them. It makes me think that if I say what I’ve been wanting to say my words wouldn’t end up in tattered shreds on the floor – confetti for all other unrequited bastards.

My throat swallows down the air that’s required to turn thought into word. The air runs a lap in my lungs and ends up at an artist’s home where it deftly gets carved into the words I’ve only let myself say at night, lying in bed and staring up at the ceiling. My diaphragm gives the words a kick of courage and my lips part, the words nudging against the inside of my teeth.

Only you speak first.

“Merlin,” you say, “you’re a good friend.”

You give me a soft smile, completely unaware of the words that have now deflated and crumpled in my mouth. It tastes like stupidity. You pat my hand once before your eyes slowly slide shut of their own accord.

Merlin, you’re a good friend.

You can kill a man with those words. 

As always,  
Merlin


End file.
